Companies Cut Pricey Older Workers

[Pale Blue Dot]

Source: ABC News

Barbara Polahmius said she devoted 13 years to a small California health care agency -- getting rave reviews for her performance, mentoring other employees and taking on extra tasks that weren't part of her job description.

But when the nonprofit was taken over by a large conglomerate eager to cut costs, she was the first to go.

In October, at the age of 58, the Santa Cruz medical information analyst was laid off, replaced by a co-worker -- "a lovely girl," half her age -- whom she had trained.

"I absolutely believe it was my age," she told ABCNews.com. "We were the ones who know about hard work and have accumulated a lifetime of knowledge.

"I couldn't prove it, but I just felt that I was going to be the one they decided to ask to leave," said Polahmius, who has twice survived cancer and is disabled with fibromyalgia. "My health care costs were not inconsiderable."

Anecdotally, some recruiters say they are filling positions once held by older workers -- defined by the federal government as those over 40 -- with eager, inexperienced college graduates.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7042634&page=1

[Hugin]

1. Of the 4 or 5 businesses where I've seen this done... None of them are still in business.

NONE!

Food for thought eager young kiddies... If they'll do it to their experienced staff they'll sure as hell do it to you and even faster.

[acmavm]

3. They shoot themselves in more than the foot everytime they do

this.

[Donnachaidh]

7. don't be so sure -- they laid off my DH after 13 years and a week later

The company resurrected under a new name. And they kept the one guy who had one year's time in, rather than call my DH back.

Special place in hell for these company owners. Profit over employees, every single time. :grr:

[Tempest]

23. Circuit City is a good example

They closed their doors for good on Sunday.

[4lbs]

29. Circuit City was THE electronics store in the 1990s. It's where I purchased many of my electronic

goods. However, the decline started with that DivX debacle back in 1999.

Then, yes, they fired all their experienced employees, hired new ones that didn't know much about what they were selling other than standard sales jargon.

That's when I stopped shopping there a lot, except for occasional sales where I would ignore the salespeople until I was ready to check out with my goods.

[mamameow]

26. right on!

when the employees who know the company operations/jobs better, are laid off and the inexperienced take their place, the company ends up losing. i have seen this many times. cut the workers who have been with the company, save by using newbies and in the short run save money. when some of these companies keep their eye only on the bottom line, they do not see the whole picture. newbies can be too inexperienced, can be too dumb or they only want the position and are not dedicated to the company, but all will work for less money, less benefits. so the the company declines, the quality declines and then the company is gone. in other words, shit floats!!!!!!!

[Baby Snooks]

28. But profit is all...

In the new corporate America the bottom line is profit and the only profit that matters is immediate profit. If the bottom falls out, the executives bail out with their "golden parachutes" and the investors, and the taxpayers, are left with the debt.

And the executives are quickly hired by another corporation who like their "expertise" in guaranteeing profit.

The less experienced, aka the twenty-somethings, cost less to hire and cost less to "maintain" and so the more experienced, aka the forty-somethings, are quickly replaced by these vultures.

And that is what oligarchy is in a way - vulture capitalism.

[Hugin]

47. "vulture capitalism"

Hmm... Very descriptive. Is it original or is it a term going around now?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

44. watched another firm go through this trainwreck

Over several months they fired more than a dozen "mature" support staff, replacing them with temps and the like. I suppose they did save some money - these women were making $65,000+ with full benefits but their office fell into total anarchy.

We hired virtually all of them right out the door, some of them just retired and their former accountant got to pocket $20,000 for a months work cleaning up their books after her 22 year old "career college accounting certificate graduate who didn't wear underwear" replacement fucked them up beyond redemption.

[Kahuna]

2. My doctor told me a few weeks ago that this was happening. nt

[raccoon]

4. Another argument in favor of a national health plan.

" "My health care costs were not inconsiderable."

This has been going on for some time.

I figure I might as well open a hot dog stand if I get laid off. Or sell apples on a street corner.

[RedEarth]

5. This has been going on for years...

I'm sure it's accelerating now, due to salary and health care costs.

[AnneD]

20. That is the only reason that explains...

lay offs even though a company is making a profit.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

6. this happened to my hunny 6 or so years ago...

in Fla. He was a supervisor in construction, small co. got bought out by a big one riding the building bubble there.

Then after yet another Supervisor of the month award (he has PILES of them), they give him a nice outdoor grill tool set, and then fire him. (also, we think they didn't like the fact that he wasn't on board with the behind the scenes cheating they wanted him to participate in.)

Still kept going back to him for help though, cuz the little kids doing the work on computers didn't know what to do out in the field. And damn if he didn't help them out of their fuck-ups!

That co. is in trouble now, I think.... (hope so, the lying scum)

[Turbineguy]

8. Yes, that's what we need in Health Care

a bigger brain drain. By the time the chickens come home to roost these genuis "managers" will have moved on.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. Barbara had two things going against her: age and illness. If one were to judge a country by the way

they treat the elderly and ill, the USA would probably be near the bottom.

[Akoto]

12. Age as a discriminating factor goes both ways, too.

I'm 24, and that has actually worked against me as I've tried to get disability. I now have an attorney fighting for me, fortunately.

The whole process has been a joke. They denied my first request because, although they admit my problem presents a severe disruption in my ability to work, they think I'm young enough to be retrained. The problem? I worked at home before, when my health was barely above water, and I can't sit to drive anyhow. Am I supposed to lay down and steer to work with my feet?

[sarcasmo]

10. I would be a class action lawsuit comes out of all these age based firings. Glad to know I am now

considered an older worker by our Government, 40 makes me an older worker. USA,USA,USA.

[Tesha]

53. When Mr. Tesha was laid-off, it was clear from the age histogram (that the...

company is obliged by law to provide during a mass-layoff)
that age discrimination was *EXACTLY* what was going on,
but our attorney assured us that we would not prevail in a
legal action.

It's a shame, but it's a fact of life.

Tesha

[flamin lib]

11. Age discrimination is rampant and there's not a damn thing you can do

about it. It is the most difficult type of discrimination to prove. You'd have to have the MFers on video telling you that you're too old and then it would be hard to win.

I'll bet the passengers on Flight 1549 (the Hudson river landing) were happy to see that white haired old guy at the controls. Here's to Capt. Chesley Sullenberge and all the other silver foxes out there.

[Baby Snooks]

31. It's also against the law...

But as you point out, how do you prove it? As for the law itself, well, reality is the law in this country is only the law on the books.

There are some attorneys who take on these type of cases but they are fewer and fewer of them. And even fewer of them willing to work on a contingency basis. Unless of course the discrimination is blatant. Which it never is. The corporations in particular are very adept at covering it up. Usually by "downsizing" and letting the older workers in a division go since they have let everyone in the division go. Of course then they "upsize" and create a new division and hire younger workers.

The older workers that were let go of course somehow just didn't have the "qualifications" for the new positions in the new division or of course they would have been hired back.

Reality is you die at 40 in this country. Imagine what it's like at 55.

All that's out there at 55 is "self-employment" and Wal-Mart.

[aquart]

50. Didn't help when the illegal immigrant paranoids

forced us to apply for jobs with documents that gave our correct age.

That legalized age discrimination in my book.

[HillWilliam]

13. Yup, me too

IT has always been the first to get hit, since upper management never really knew what we did and we were always considered a "liability" on the company P&L sheet rather than an asset. Starting in the late 80's, companies forgot that their data wasn't just an asset, it was also control of their destiny. Once they let go of their IT people and let go of their data (and corporate privacy) to "the experts", I saw company after company die from outside "expert" advice. The upper management always profited from trashing-out the remains and all the worker-bees got thrown to the curb.

My salary has consistently gone down since the early 90's from 90k now to 50k, yet I have more skills, more languages, more value, more experience under my belt. I've been replaced more than once by some 20-something with a piece of paper from Microsoft, who couldn't problem-solve their way out of a wet paper bag. Oh, but they had that piece of paper and they'd work for 1/3 of the salary!

I can't tell you how many calls I got after the fact when shit was blowing up around corporate ears and young Mr KnowItAll with the All-Important Piece of Microsoft Paper couldn't fix it a month what I could solve over the phone in ten or fifteen minutes. For a consulting fee, of course. (I ain't 'tooput.) It wasn't long until IT was totally outsourced or the company had bought some zillion-dollar package the new "experts" had recommended (that never seemed to get working). Not long after that, the company folded because of that and a few other stupid decisions; the upper management trashed-out the remains; the worker-bees were on the street; the former upper-management were the new upper-management at some other company and were already working their "magic" to kill another company and make another killing by trashing-out again.

It's a particularly nasty, repug sort of way they make their living, across the backs of other people's sweat, experience, dedication, and lives.

[Demit]

14. Yet there's still all the talk about raising retirement age.

When is some savvy pundit going to point out that—and it's been an open secret for a very long time—companies don't want to keep older workers?

[stubtoe]

15. It's called the "Silver Ceiling".

nt

[Supersedeas]

45. we know or hope to reach the Silver years...only to be treated like this by beancounters

[Bake]

16. I am/was the oldest non-partner associate in my firm

And guess where they started the "cutbacks." Yep. There are a handful of others within a few motnhs to a year of me, but I'm the oldest.

And my last day is the end of this month.

Bake

[Retrograde]

17. sun to rise in east tomorrow

It's been going on for a while. A lot of times companies make sure they're within the letter of the law by letting a number of younger workers go at the same time and quietly hiring them back later.

[LynneSin]

18. I hate to say it - sometimes I'm almost glad not to get major raises

I'm at that age where I keep thinking they could easily replace me if my salary gets too out of hand. I'm making enough money that I can take care of my needs and personally I don't need anymore than what I make. Sure it would be nice to make more money; however, I just don't want to get too 'costly'

[SteppingRazor]

19. Company loyalty is a dated notion.

If they've gotta lay somebody off to cut costs, are they going to fire the guy who's been there for 20 years and now makes a lot of cash, or are they going to fire the new hire with his/her starting salary? To a corporate bean counter, it's not a tough question to answer.

[90-percent]

21. Classic

Classic "management by visible numbers only".

This is a concept from Edwards Deming, the Quality/mgmt guy.

Deming is out of fashion now, but he had some advocates like Newt Gingrich in the 80's.

Deming is the guy the Japanese embraced in the fifties, whilst America was busy ignoring him for a couple of decades.

-90% Jimmy

laid off Feb 27 at age 54 with 30 years in my field and a BS degree!

[antimatter98]

22. This is nothing new, unfortunately, and that age is dropping.

Back in the last downturn, a major corporation laid off a lot of older workers
and I was told that a list was made of everyone over 40 and they were either laid off
or told to take severance or else be laid off.

There are employment discrimination laws on the books for 40+ ages, and this is
another reason why older workers are laid off first and are seldom hired if they
are over the age of 40. Companies don't want to deal with the possibility that
an over 40 worker will make claims under those laws.

And of course, older workers are vested, which companies don't want to pay for, so
it incents companies to get those workers out to avoid paying legacy costs later.

This all has been a fact in the economy for a long time--20 years at least, probablly longer.

When you get to be early 40's is when you see the signs yourself, so if you are employed
in industry (not academic employment), watch for it and make sure you have your millions
saved up!

[LiberalEsto]

36. Those pensions are definitely a factor

Years ago, before the newspaper industry collapsed and I was still young enough to have a job as a reporter, I knew some people who worked for a rival paper owned by Gannett -- the company that publishes USA Today. Gannett has always had a horrible reputation as a place to work because of the way it treats employees.(My first husband worked for a Gannett paper too)

Back in the 1980s, as soon as one of my acquaintances at this Gannett paper was about to become vested in their pension, their assignment would be changed. This happened to two people I know. They would be assigned a beat that was at least 50 miles from their home, and be forced to spend long hours on the road traveling between home, news bureau and the county seat or town hall. It became grueling, since they often had to cover meetings that ran late, yet be at their desks on time the next morning. The idea was to work the employee so hard that they would quit. (Or work them into a heart attack perhaps?) Over the years I have heard from former Gannett employees who worked for one or more of their other papers, that this practice happened elsewhere. I vowed I would never work for that wretched company, and I never have.

[Le Taz Hot]

24. 5-10 years ago my hourly

wage worked out to be about $75.00 an hour. Of course, that came along with a 100-hour work week and I had no life but it was good money if you could get it. The hours finally got to me, I quit and started trying to find something close to home. I got call after call in response to my pretty damned impressive resume. Then I'd go to the interview, they'd see I obviously wasn't 25 and all of a sudden it's "you're over qualifed." (Buzzwords for "you're too old.") After about the 20th time it's not hard to figure out what the problem was. I have LOADS of experience, TONS of different transferable skills and an education. But at 53, I'm a liability. So now, I'm working for the Census Office making $11.25 an hour and no benefits. Why? Because it's what I could get AND, in that my area has about a 20% unemployment rate, I was happy to get it because there was probably 100 people standing in line for that job. This is now my 4th week and in that time, other than studying to be one of the help-desk persons and being able to take apart, put together and initialize 868 handhelds, I'm now the designated person on Word, Excel, data input on DAPPS, have filed TONS of folders and already written the Help Desk Manual. To be perfectly honest, NONE of the sweet young things they hired can come close to keeping up with me. Why? E-X-P-E-R-I-E-N-C-E.

[sasquatch]

25. Well the Boomers were warned this would happen but MOST of them ignored us

No, most of them wanted to be "cool" and vote for Ronny Raygun the actor. Raygun then gave birth to the corpratist movement and now we're seeing what people were going through years ago.

[Le Taz Hot]

35. No, most of US didn't vote for Ronnie Reagan.

Ronnie Reagan courted the nutso fundy vote which, up until 1980 NOBODY wanted because they were/are, well, nutso fundies. Now, add in the Southern Strategy and a real conVENient hostage situation and they were able to pull off a victory over an incumbent president. And it all worked pretty well for the GOP until 2006 when it didn't anymore. THOSE are the facts. Blaming all things dire on "da boomers" ignores history and reality and makes you look uninformed. Making the assumption that all 33 MILLION of us voted/acted/have lived our lives in exactly the same way is sophomoric, and I'm being generous.

[Hello_Kitty]

48. Here's some history:

1984 Group Mondale Reagan
All Voters Pct. 41% 59%


18-24 11 39 61
25-29 12 43 57
30-49 34 42 58
50-64 23 39 61
65 & over 19 36 64

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_84.html

In fairness, all groups voted to re-elect Raygun, but he sure bamboozled plenty of Boomers.

Here's some more recent history:

2000 election - Gore won slightly with older Boomers but Bush edged out with younger ones.

% Age Gore Bush Nader


15 18 to 29 54 41 5
34 30 to 44 46 51 3
37 45 to 64 51 47 2
14 65 & older 46 52 2

http://www.pollingreport.com/2000.htm

2004 election - Bush wins Boomers narrowly

VOTE BY AGE BUSH KERRY NADER
TOTAL 2004 2000 2004 2004

18-29 (17%) 45% n/a 54% 0%

30-44 (29%) 53% +4 46% 1%

45-59 (30%) 51% +2 48% 0%

60 and Older (24%) 54% +7 46% 0%

So it's true that it's not fair to blame Boomers for the past 30 years, and gawd knows we Gen Xers did our share when it was our turn to start voting.

[sinkingfeeling]

43. Who is the 'us' in your post? Are you older than 65? Or younger than 45?

I voted for J. Carter (D) in 1980 and W. Mondale (D) in 1984.

[Missy Vixen]

27. Tell me about it

This happened to my 44 year old husband in November. They "replaced" him with his assistant, who had no idea how to do his job.

It'll be interesting to see how long his former employer hangs on; it's tough to stay in business when a software company providing custom installation doesn't have anyone that actually knows how to configure and install the product. :woohoo:

[Kermitt Gribble]

30. This is why we need to strengthen and grow the unions. n/t

[Peregrine Took]

32. My ex- (young) library director got rid of the middle aged librarians and

replaced us with a younger, more "diverse" bunch.

[Joanne98]

33. Nationalize them!

[Auggie]

34. Nothing is better than stealing business away from the firm that terminated you

Work for yourself

[madmom]

37. This is what the Big 3 have been doing for years with their "buy-out" plans, they get

rid of their legacy employees and hire in younger ones at a lower salary and fewer benefits. The ONLY reason they offer buy-outs instead of simply lay-offs is because of unions.

[Imalittleteapot]

38. Personally know several WOMEN that this has happened to -

let go after many years at the magic age of 57.

[puebloknot]

39. Working for yourself is the best revenge!

I've earned my living for years, from my own home office, by training people to do editing for court reporters -- also from their homes and at a way-above-average income.

In those years, I've seen a lot of scenarios, but many are exactly what this article describes: Older people are ushered out the door in favor of someone with better legs or a macho stance that the company thinks will grease the skids to more profit. Often, these decisions are made by some young college "thang" who wants to redecorate the office and get rid of anything that doesn't match the wallpaper!

Many of the people I've been training over the last five years are people like the woman in this article who have been working as medical transcriptionists. Now those jobs are being outsourced to India and the Philippines, and voice recognition software has come into play. So those people can move into the area of medical malpractice or environmental impact litigation, with additional training, and make use of their medical training in the legal arena.

Read all about it: www.ScopingCareers.com

www.ScopingCareers.blogspot.com


Sometimes the door that slams on us leaves us out in the hall, wondering what to do. Many people lack confidence to open another door -- one of their own design -- and work for themselves. A lot of new businesses have been created out of desperation, where someone takes something they know how to do, hangs out their shingle, and puts together a pretty good living. And then they wonder why they didn't do it years ago. Too much of the population has been deluded into trusting "the company store" to make their "golden years" a pleasant interlude as they are walking into the sunset.

I think we're all going to be working much longer than we ever envisioned in our well-spent youth. I ran into a woman here in Santa Fe who is 78 years old. She can't live on social security, and has no family. So she started a business to drive people down to Albuquerque to the airport, and later go down and pick them up. Her own shuttle system. She shouldn't have to do it, but her attitude was that she was glad to have the opportunity. But what happens when she's just too old and tired to go?

In the meantime, if you can clean houses (a very honorable thing to do), repair computers, teach people how to use software, do home repairs, you could have a small operation going that will feed you. I know of someone in California who started cooking nutritious meals and freezing them, then delivering to various clients. Much better stuff than the frozen stuff you find at the market. And I think she did it on a "contribution" model, so she wasn't "charging" for the meals. It was a word-of-mouth thing that allowed her to survive.

So ... despair begone. We're good enough, we're smart enough, and by golly, people like us!!!!

Judy

[katty]

40. in CA - law against age discrimination.

[Puzzler]

41. Many companies have been at this for years...

... no surprises at all.

[wisteria]

42. I can't prove it either and it isn't worth the time, but I just lost my job.

And, yes I think one factor was because of my age.I also had a feeling it was going to be me they let go. The two younger people still have their jobs in the department where I worked. I just hope they realize after the fact that I did most of the hard work while the younger group passed the work along to others to handle.

[Blue_Tires]

46. they did this in newspapers as well

and we see the resulting decline in news quality as the corporate beancounters constantly wanted a younger and cheaper payroll...

[Hello_Kitty]

49. I'm pretty sure I didn't get hired for at least 2 positions I interviewed for

Because I'm 40. It's ironic that the more the population ages the younger your "shelf life" is. At the big company I worked for, it was conventional wisdom that if you hadn't made it the big time there by age 30 (assuming you came in after college) you could just hang it up.

[XemaSab]

51. Environmental consulting firms are divided between the crusty old salts and the cute young things

The cute young things bill out at a low rate so they win bids, but a lot of them are inexperienced. The crusty old salts have no time to train the cute young things, so after a year or so either the cute young things learn to fake it or they're let go.

I'm young and I don't fake it.

READ YOUR LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTS. A lot of time they're a big pile of crap.

[lucretia54]

52. One word:

KARMA!